The white Sucha a species of vulture  Courtesy of Pere Comma Gutiérrez

Pere returned from Pelechuco from his first incursion to the western Andean sector of the most important national park of Bolivia, and left for Spain where was born 33 years ago.  He is building with a great deal of work the most notable photographic documentary file of an area protected whose bio-diversity is of international importance and is precise to preserve.    

Pere is from Catalonia, a region of northeast Spain bordering on France and the Mediterranean Sea. He was born next to the sea in L´Scale- Girona.  He is a photo reporter, graduated in the Gray school of Art in Barcelona, specialized in nature.  Because of it, is a member of the Spanish Association of Photographers of Nature, the most important in its thematic in the peninsula.  Since 1990, he worked in his country and in Costa Rica, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Honduras, Guatemala and since the year 2000 in Bolivia with an exclusive task: to photograph the Madidi and affirms with a difficult enthusiasm to hide.    

“Madidi is a unique and exceptional park.  In other countries of America, I knew and I worked in protected areas of great value, especially by their tropical humid forest.  But Madidi is impressive: not only because is very extensive and possesses immense territories of little acquaintances or unexplored but also because combines ecosystems so much of Amazonía as of the solid Andean.    

That it is very singular, very rich and very motivate for a photographer”.    

The National Park and Natural Area of Management Integrated Madidi was created in 1995 and it has a surface of almost 20.000 square kilometers.  It is situated to the north of the department of La Paz, at some 300 kilometers from the headquarters of the government of the republic of Bolivia, in the central west South America.

Otters & tortoises

Before arriving in Bolivia, he had carried out different works of documentation.  He began with a project of reintroduction of the otter in the natural park of Aiguamolls of L´Empordá in its native Catalonia.  The species was saved in a frontier zone with Portugal that was going to be embalmed.  Also he collaborated with the environmental processes of education that is implemented in the cited park.  Then, he jumped to America.    

In Costa Rica, “another marvelous country”, documented the spawn of the tortoise laud and green –world species of fame- in the peaceful and Atlantic coasts of that country of the Central American isthmus.

In Venezuela, he worked in the documentation of the biodiversity of the plains and of the islands of the archipelago of Los Roques.    

He also photographed the Amazon fauna in the state of Para and in the Brazilian Pantanal. In Peru, he did his own thing with the cultural patrimony of Cuzco.    

Finally, he visited Bolivia in the year 2000 and he returns back here again since his first trip.    

“I want to continue working in the Madidi but would also please myself to work in the Andean region, in the salares. Bolivia is one of the countries with less acquaintances of the world and its ecosystems and its cultures are all very interesting”.    

In and out to the Madidi

In coordination with Conservation International and the National Service of Protected Areas (SERNAP) of Bolivia, he conducted several expeditions inside the national park star of Bolivia.    

The year 2000 he worked in the Tuichi River, in the Ecological Shelter Chalalán and the in community of origin Tacana of San José of Uchupiamonas from where he originates his friends of the forest.  Then, he entered for the first time to the high basin of the Madidi River, privileged given almost the nil human intervention and its incredible biodiversity.  He photographed them stopping at Caquiawara and left for Apollo to enter to Mojos through Virgen del Rosario.    

In the 2001 he was reintroduced in the high basin of the Madidi, this time accompanied by the Spanish biologist Isaac Sunyer.  The 2002, it laboured in the saltpeter of the Tuichi River very concurred by valuable species of fauna.  In the 2003, he returned to the heads of the Madidi and inspects the streams of Norwegian, Grande, Colorado, Flora, Yatorana and Enatawa, some of which not even are named in the maps, and the lake Llulla, only explored before by the Tacanas.

“We have done” Pere says “underwater photograph in the Flora and in the Yatorana.  We have a good registration of the londra (the otter of the Amazonía) that is the symbolic species of the Madidi River. Also, we manage to photograph the white Sucha (species of vulture) and at Serere (or koatzin), a very rare fowl. But it still lacks, as the biodiversity of the region is interminable. The crossing included the travelling through the entire Madidi River with our arrival to Port Cavinas, in the Beni.”

To finish the year, Comas accompanied two specialists in herpetic-fauna, the German Dick Embert and the Spanish José María Padial in a part of the mega transect among San José and Apollo, this time to the river link, crossing the mountain range of the same name (www. herpetology-Bolivia. com).

Approximation to Apololbamba

"I had known your work by Internet and always I wanted that we could work together”, Comas assures and subscribes. “Because of it, on January 7 we left bound for Pelechuco, in the heart of the solid Andean of Apolobamba, to amuse the IV version of the Expedition Madidi, having the company of the guides Reynaldo Vázquez (Quechua) and Rómulo Macuapa (Tacana)."

In spite of the rigorous climatic conditions, we concur to the zone in full epoch of rains and did not cease to rain, and even to snow, a single day to arrive to the community of Puina and to inspect places as Curamachay –where a population of deer and the lake Sorsal exist.  At the same time, the important archaeological patrimony of the region was verified, especially in the old road incaico that connected Apollo with the present Peru.    

In Puina and in Queara, meetings with the native authorities of the communities were maintained to plan a future expedition, this time in September and Comas says:

“Not a documentary registration of the most important species of the region exists that is the jucumari or Andean bear.  I am convinced that, with the contribution of the community people, we are going to be able to photograph it.  It is the only variety of bear of the south hemisphere and is in danger to disappear given the demographic pressure on the land.  A project of preservation not only will protect the species but can be converted at the same time in a source of incomes for the settlers through the development of the eco-tourism in the zone”.    

For it, a crossing is planned that will include the sector of Chilcani, the high basin of the Mosojhuaico River and the high basin of the Mojos River.    

Comas emphasizes: “The region of Apolobamba, that includes two protected areas having the same name and the western sector of the Madidi, possesses an enormous potential not only in biodiversity but, and above all, in cultural patrimony.  I believe that the photograph is a good media to bring to light and conscientious on the need to preserve them and to prompt sustainable projects of development that is the most effective way to do it”.    

In that we are

Pablo Cingolani

La Paz, 22/01/04